Bill Nye Wants To Save
the Planet From Asteroids (Source: Mother Jones)
William Sanford Nye (his friends call him "Bill") made his first mark
on history while sitting in a college classroom in 1976. It was just
another day at Cornell University for Nye as an energetic, Ultimate
Frisbee-playing undergraduate student. He was chatting with fellow
students when in walked their professor—the legendary astronomer and
author Carl Sagan—with an unexpected request.

Sagan asked the class which Chuck Berry song should be included on the
Voyager Golden Record, the collection of songs and images placed aboard
the two Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977. Sagan left an indelible
mark on Nye, but his his love for science and engineering was inspired
much earlier. "The spark was before kindergarten," Nye says. His
mother, Jacqueline, was a codebreaker during the Second World War,
fighting fascism with math and science. Click here.
(1/3)

For 2nd Time Ever, We Saw
an Asteroid Before It Hit Us (Source: Newser)
While working a solo shift on New Year's Eve, an Arizona astronomer
spotted a car-sized asteroid en route to Earth. There are a few amazing
things about this: 1) It's only the second time ever that an asteroid
has been spotted before impact, and 2) The previous one was spotted by
the same guy. Astronomer Rich Kowalski is part of the Catalina Sky
Survey at the University of Arizona, a group "that has found more than
half the near-Earth asteroids known to mankind." (1/3)

National Association of
Rocketry Plans Space Coast Convention (Source: NAR)
The National Association of Rocketry’s (NAR) annual National Convention
(NARCON) will be held in Cocoa Beach at the International Palms Resort
and Conference Center, February 28 - March 2, 2014. This conference is
the NAR’s preeminent technical conference for exchange of the latest
sport rocketry trends and techniques. Click here for
information. (1/3)

More Than 1,000 People In
Line for Mars Colony (Source: Space.com)
More than 200,000 people signed up to take a one-way trip to Mars to be
part of a colony run by Netherlands nonprofit Mars One, and now the
organization has winnowed applicants down to a short list of 1,058.
Mars One co-founder Bas Lansdorp said the group had to eliminate those
who did not appear to take the one-way trip seriously. (12/31)

Entrepreneurs See
Business Opportunities at Drone Sites (Source: Seattle
Times)
Drone makers and other companies are eager for business opportunities
now that the Federal Aviation Administration has named the six states
where it will test integration of drones into the commercial domestic
airspace. "There is enormous pent up demand for the opportunity to
legally test the systems, because it's been extremely difficult for
manufacturers to do so," said Ro Bailey, deputy director of the Alaska
Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration at the University of
Alaska, Fairbanks. (1/1)

U.S. Air Force Targets
2016 for CHIRP Follow-On (Source: Space News)
Following a funding-driven decision by U.S. Air Force leaders to
decommission an experimental missile-warning sensor hosted aboard a
commercial satellite, the service hopes follow-on technology will be
ready for a flight demonstration in 2016. In December, the Air Force
announced it was ending the pioneering Commercially Hosted Infrared
Payload (CHIRP) mission that launched in September 2011. (1/2)

SpaceX's Falcon 9 Launch
Slips to Next Week (Source: Florida Today)
SpaceX’s planned Friday launch of a commercial broadcasting satellite
from Cape Canaveral has slipped to no earlier than Monday, according to
the Air Force’s 45th Space Wing. No reason was given immediately for
the delay. The Air Force said additional launch opportunities would be
available from Jan. 8 to Jan. 12, if necessary. (1/2)

ESA Creates Gecko Robot
Prototype for Repairs in Space (Source: ESA)
The European Space Agency (ESA) is creating a gecko robot for repairs
in outer space, which will have six legs imitating the stickiness of
the gecko lizard feet. Scientists have built a 240-gram robot prototype
named Abigaille. Its six legs are provided with microfibers that are
much rougher than those of lizards whose feet are sticky due to little
hairs with ends a thousand times thinner than a human hair.

And yet this is enough to keep a small robot in place on various smooth
man-made surfaces or allow it crawl from one such surface to another
even at an angle of 90 degrees. Michael Henrey of Simon Fraser
University, who is the project manager, said “this approach is an
example of ‘biomimicry’, taking engineering solutions from the natural
world.” (1/2)

Small Asteroid 2014 AA
Hits Earth (Source: Sky & Telescope)
New Year's Eve didn't stop observer Richard Kowalski from scanning the
sky for near-Earth objects (NEOs). Using the 60-inch telescope on
Arizona's Mount Lemmon, he noticed a 19th-magnitude blip skimming
through northern Orion in a seven-image series begun at 5:16 p.m. (1:16
Universal Time on January 1st). After confirming that it was a new
find, Kowalski dutifully submitted positions and times to the IAU's
Minor Planet Center. (1/2)

Garver Says NASA Should
Not Build the SLS: “Where is it Going to Go?” (Source:
Houston Chronicle)
Lori Garver, NASA’s powerful former deputy administrator who left the
space agency in September, was once an advocate for the Space Launch
System. In 2011, for example, she said of NASA’s human exploration
program: “We plan a very robust future for not only human spaceflight,
but for NASA generally.” But after leaving NASA Garver appears to
either have changed her mind or, more likely, she feels free to say
what really is on her mind.

Garver was asked what programs NASA should cancel in order to allow it
to achieve more meaningful things in space. "It was something that
Congress dictated to NASA, it had to do with the Orion spacecraft," she
said. "It is a holdover from Constellation, which the Obama
administration tried to cancel, and it’s $3 billion a year of NASA’s
$17 billion. Is that how you would be investing in the space program?
Where is it going to go? When will it even fly?"

Later Garver also says NASA should scrap its Mars 2020 rover in favor
of a robotic exploration of Europa, a moon of Jupiter that may harbor
life in its water oceans. The significance of Garver’s comments, in
regard to the SLS, is that they are consistent with those of most
observers who do not work directly for NASA, and thus are not beholden
to the program of record as mandated by Congress and the White House.
(1/2)

Space Tourists Flock to
the Heavens (Source: MacLean's)
Only 550 or so people have ever flown into space. It’s remarkable,
then, that almost 700 clients have already signed up with Virgin
Galactic, Richard Branson’s private space-tourism company, which has
yet to begin offering commercial space flights. The year 2014 will be
big for Virgin Galactic. If all goes according to plan, Branson and his
adult children, Holly and Sam, will be the first private passengers to
travel into space aboard Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo craft, ushering
in a new era of space flight for the masses. (1/2)

Space Missions and Events
We’re Looking Forward to in 2014 (Source: WIRED)
While our spaceflight missions come to fruition in the heavens, they
all have to start here on Earth. The next year in space will see a lot
of changes, as new technologies get tested and exciting missions get
going. National space agencies and, increasingly, private companies are
preparing for their next adventures in space. There will also be great
celestial phenomena to enjoy and, very likely, a number of unexpected
surprises cropping up. To help prepare for it all, we take a look at
what next year holds for spaceflight. Click here.
(1/2)

Eutelsat Closes Satmex
Purchase (Source: Space News)
Satellite fleet operator Eutelsat on Jan. 2 said it had completed its
$831 million cash purchase of Mexico’s Satmex, giving Eutelsat a major
beachhead in the robust Latin American market alongside rivals
Intelsat, SES, Telesat and others. The acquisition, which includes the
assumption of some $300 million in Satmex debt, was announced in July.
Eutelsat said its mid-December issue of 930 million euros ($1.28
billion) in six-year bonds, paying a 2.63 percent annual interest rate,
would be used to finance the deal. (1/2)

What an Exomoon Would
Look Like From Earth (Source: Scientific American)
In “Astronomers Search for Moons Circling Distant Exoplanets” author
Lee Billings explores the hunt for moons orbiting distant
planets—exomoons. The project uses data from the Kepler satellite
mission, which (until technical issues sidelined it earlier this year)
had been focusing on a single spot in the sky in the hope of catching
so-called “transits”—instances when an exoplanet would pass in front of
its host star, blocking some of the light.

If any moons orbited those planets, they could also be visible in the
data. This video animation by Alex Parker, a postdoctoral researcher at
the University of California, Berkeley, shows what a theoretical
exomoon would look like. Click here.
(1/2)

Can ISRO Pull Off GSLV-D5
Launch This Time? (Source: Business Today)
After several setbacks in its attempt to master the cryogenic rocket
technology, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is finally
set to launch a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) with an
indigenous cryogenic engine. The launch of the GSLV-D5 will take place
at 4.18 pm on January 5 and the 29-hour countdown will begin a day
before. (1/2)

Hat Tip to SpaceX as
Rebranded Airbus Defense and Space Takes Flight (Source:
Space News)
Airbus Defense and Space, formerly named Astrium, rendered homage to
its newest commercial launch competitor, SpaceX, saying the Hawthorne,
Calif., company has been able to retain a focus on cost efficiency
without veering off into fascinating but unnecessary engineering
challenges.

Company officials also described how it will use the reorganization
inside the Airbus Group — the new name for the former EADS and Europe’s
biggest aerospace company — to find synergies between the construction
of Earth observation and telecommunications satellites, and between
electronics components for military aircraft and for satellites, to
improve profitability. (1/2)

Titan’s Seas Get an
Earthly Stand-In as Robot Explores Chilean Lake (Source:
Scientific American)
Early Mars rovers had little more intelligence than a fancy
remote-controlled car. NASA’s Curiosity rover is somewhat more evolved:
It can navigate around simple obstacles and spot a dust devil on its
own. Much more brainpower would be required for a robotic exploration
of Saturn’s moon Titan. Home to one of the solar system’s liveliest
environments outside of Earth, Titan has tidal seas of methane, a
stormy atmosphere and perhaps ice volcanoes.

With the aim of building a robot smart enough for Titan, Trey Smith and
a team of other engineers and scientists spent three weeks this month
at a remote lake in the high Chilean Andes. They were field-testing the
Planetary Lake Lander, an early prototype of a floating space probe
that could, among other things, notice an octopus swimming past. (1/2)

Forgotten Aliens: We
Should Hunt for Viruses in Space (Source: New Scientist)
Imagine you are from an alien civilization, tasked with collecting a
sample from Earth to take back to your planet to look for signs of
life. You will only be able to return a small representative sample,
which means you will be collecting a small amount of seawater from your
visit to this "pale blue dot".

In a thimbleful of Earth seawater there will be perhaps 10 million
viruses, up to a million microbes and certainly no humans. So it's only
a small leap to imagine that, if we ever found life on another planet,
viruses would be present too. Why, then, don't space agencies such as
NASA and the European Space Agency look for viruses on other planets?
Before we can begin to think about extraterrestrial viruses, however,
we need a good understanding of the viruses on our own planet. This is
where things get complicated. (1/2)

Space Launch Highlights
for 2014 (Source: SEN)
Commercial companies will play an increasingly important part in space
flight in 2014. Some will continue to fly satellites or carry supplies
to the International Space Station. But a highlight is expected to be
the first sub-orbital flights by Virgin Galactic. After flight tests of
the WhiteKnightTwo mother ship and its spacecraft SpaceShipTwo, plus
firings of the rocket engine in 2013, Sir Richard Branson’s company is
aiming to carry its first fare-paying passengers before the new year is
over. Click here.
(1/2)